ARTICLE - But What Class Am I?

I've been reading an anthology of working class writing, entitled Common People. I recognise the types of lives and lifestyles recounted. Though familiar, there is also a recognition that this was never my class. I view it as if from one remove. But what class am I? And does that really matter ? Does questioning the need for class, demonstrate a conflicted relationship with my origins? Is this indifference primarily a middle class one? Or is it more an example of 'class drift' ? Shifting one band along from the class of ones birth. But if I wasn't born into either  middle nor working class, then what was I born into?

The ideal of a classless society is also a persistent middle class one. Because being in the middle, in between the firmly entrenched extremes of working or upper, is rarely a comforting place to rest your head and heart. It's a position where cultural and social re-definition takes place. Yet few consciously love and fully embrace being middle class. Its like we are all on the way somewhere but never quite recognise when we've arrived. The middle classes seem derided by both sides, and quite often from within themselves. Self critical feelings of class guilt about everything you do or don't do, what you own or don't own, is not uncommon. Better to decry the existence of the whole class construct, where everyone becomes amorphously absorbed into being middle class anyway.

That I've become 'culturaly' middle class is beyond doubt. A life spent educating myself, exploring the arts, craft, design and culture, my interest in history, architecture, archeology and nature. At various times I've been a member or supporter of The National Trust, CND, Friends of the Earth and Amnesty International. A practising Buddhist for thirty years. Lived in a Buddhist community for near on twenty years. I'm gay, happily married to my Husband, running a gift and home ware business with him, selling craft made items made by us or other local and UK makers. I was once part of a Morris dancing group. I make my own sourdough. I've been known to buy things from John Lewis. How are all these not symptomatic of being achingly middle class? These credentials are impeccable. Yet such interests can also feel like huge affectations, that one day someone will painfully pull the rug from beneath them. As if being middle class was were a temporary thing, a pretention and where fakery resides.

If I look back to my upbringing, what my parents chose to do with their lives. There are my origins. My Father trained as a joiner, was self employed and ran his own business and a shop. His Father was also a self employed specialist painter and decorator. My Mother trained to be a secretary, became a housewife, and later returned to secretarial work out of financial necessity. Her Father was a clerk in a dye works. Independent minded people with trades and skills to offer. Ditto myself.

Neither of my parents, nor their parents, would have described themselves as working class. They were deeply suspicious of socialist ideals. They voted Conservative all their lives, but were generally liberal in outlook. The epitome of the term, often used pejoratively as if it were somehow traitorous to some cause - 'Aspirational Working Class'. They wanted to do better, to transcend the limitations of their own upbringing. Whilst not destitute poor, they were sometimes more hand to mouth and making do, than they would have liked. They had only a small amount of spare capital to fund their own desires or financially support their children's either. It was aspirational, but done on a wing and a prayer.

Some of my Mother's prejudices reveal her anxieties about being perceived as working class. She could be very sniffy about places and people she thought common or vulgar, more often than not these would be working class in nature. She'd be concerned about the sort of children we were playing with, not nit infested, too rough or scruffy. She'd never go in a cafe that was remotely near to being called a 'greasy spoon' - 'this is not our sort of place is it Lewis?' she'd say whenever we approached one. She'd try to instill what she saw as good taste and foreswore the use of swearing or coarse language. The first and only time we heard our Mother swear out loud, my sister and I dissolved in fits of laughter. It was so out of character. She wanted us both to act and speak properly, to be respectable, presentable, uphold standards, and not bring shame upon the family.

My Father needed to be independent and capable. And this drove him on, all the way to his death bed. He picked up new skills seemingly by osmosis. Eventually in his late fifties being able to build his own house. His upbringing amongst seven other siblings meant there was always some sort rivalry, a tug of war going on for resources, between his brothers and sisters. Most of his brothers developed either a trade, like their Father, or became middle Management. So not your classic, low or no skill, working class background. They were resourceful, either learning on the job or took evening classes to acquire skills or qualifications.

Being brought up in Yorkshire you can't avoid people suspecting that you are putting on intellectual airs, talking posh, and hence need taking down a peg or two. Living in the south being generally held to turn you soft in the head. Placing an unwarranted amount of pride in being down to earth, plain speaking to the point of rudeness, and anti anything considered high brow or arty. These views surrounded me all the time whilst growing up. My parents were afraid of how I would change when I went away to art collage. Which I did, often in ways even I did not expect. Mostly I'd say for the better. I got over some of my inhibitions. I saw through the limitations of the defensive blunt Yorkshire viewpoint. I moved nearer to what I envisaged as a truer way of being my self.

The feeling for my origins, class wise, hovers between working and middle class. Its liminal, to use a very middle class expression. As hard to grasp as the thing its trying to describe. That it is somewhat slippery elusive and indefinable suits me fine. No one thing can be me. What my class is shifts around, different with each day. Its a movable mutable quality. Who we are needs to be able to evolve, and in saying that I'm not thinking of class at all. More by way of views, ethics, understanding, empathy or spiritually speaking.

I'm wary of using any one thing to permanently define or fix my identity. Whether that's by class, gender, sexual orientation, career or nationality to name but a few. Though they are there, they are a part of who I am, and there is pride present. But you cannot make any single aspect represent the entirety. So I've rarely want to make a display of them as if they are a badge of honour or a public expression of who I am.